Sæmund Sigfusson, surnamed "the Wise," was an Icelandic priest and scald.  He compiled the Elder or Rhythmical Edda, often called Sæmund's Edda.  This compilation contains not only mythological tales and moral sentences, but numerous sagas in verse or heroic lays, as those of Völung and Helgê, of Sigurd and Brynhilda, of Folsungs and Niflungs (pt. ii.).  Probably his compilation contained all the mythological, heroic, and legendary lays extant at the period in which he lived (1054-1133). (The Reader's Handbook of Famous Names in Fiction, &c., Brewer, 1899)